Economy

Fratzscher has headed the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) for more than a year now, and it is clear that this newfound proximity has sharpened his view of the contradictions in the world's fourth-largest economy. German industry sells high-quality automobiles and machines around the world, but when the plaster begins to crumble in an elementary school, parents have to raise money to hire a painter. Companies and private households are sitting on trillions in assets, but half of all autobahn bridges are urgently in need of repair. Germany derives more benefits from Europe than most other countries, and yet its citizens feel taken advantage of by Brussels.

Uber drivers have no say in the pricing, yet they must carry their own insurance and foot the bill for gas and repairs — a cost of 56¢ per mile, according to IRS estimates. With Uber’s new pricing model, drivers are forced to work under razor-thin margins. Arman, for instance, made about $20 an hour just a year ago. And now? Some days he doesn’t even break minimum wage.

Loading the mediator with hydrogen was tested in an airtight electrolysis cell containing either a Pt or carbon felt anode and a carbon cathode. The researchers found that the reduced form of the mediator could easily be transferred into a sealed reaction flask where metal foils can catalyze hydrogen evolution.

The rise of the PetroYuan has not been far from our headlines in the last year, with China increasingly leveraging its rise as an economic power and as the most important incremental market for hydrocarbon exporters, in the Persian Gulf and the former Soviet Union, to circumscribe dollar dominance in global energy - with potentially profound ramifications for America’s strategic position.

A fearsome volley was launched back in February when Energy Secretary Ed Davey spoke of the “vulnerability” facing the people of Scotland. “An independent Scotland….(could be) over-dependent on one industry and on one source of tax revenue. We saw (North Sea) tax revenue fall in one year, 2012-2013, by 40 percent….It should sound a note of caution: if we think that there is this money tree of the oil and gas industry which will fund independence, that simply is not true.” Daley’s comments were backed up by the report of Sir Ian Wood that found exploration in the North Sea at an all-time low and recommended a series of tax breaks and incentives to increase collaboration between companies to stem a 38% production drop since 2011.

"Look at the rivers, look at the sky, look at China, look at the United States," José Escalona-Martinez said after he took his Batman mask off and laid down his "Carbon Tax" sign in Times Square. Escalona-Martinez had recently gotten out of jail after an altercation with a drunk tourist, but wanted to be back on the job for the protest.

A man named Jeff Yarbro hammers on about who they see as enemy #1: environmentalists. As Yarbro has it, the environmentalists have fought to make sure whatever precious water is released from the state’s reservoirs goes to facilitating salmon runs. The problem is that most of this water heads out into the ocean with no attempt to reuse it. “They want this valley all jackrabbits and sage brush,” he says, meaning the environmentalists. “They don’t believe we should be here. They’d like to turn the valley like it was a hundred years ago. And for us to go elsewhere.”

Gold & Silver

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